> One takeaway that I remembered from the stream is - some "goal" would be nice, not necessarily a conflict
The game has no "story" because I haven't written one yet. I have to make a working game first, then I'll work worldbuilding into it. The response is that the game is not finished.
>One complaint though - I would prefer to have a bit more granularity for the management. Like - if I set the guy to mine ore - maybe I can tell him to mine iron specifically?
Unfortunately no. There are quite a few gameplay balance reasons for this. I considered doing it already, but it would cause a lot of issues. The jobs are the way they are because later buildings automate production. Pawns won't be roaming the map. If a Mine exists, a pawn assigned to mine ore would go there. The objects obtained by mining at a Mine structure have a random drop table. It would be like going to a boss in an MMO and telling it what loot to drop for you.
>Speaking of lumber mill - I would really like to see the list of recipes that I can use, and I really want to be able to pick which recipe I'm gonna use. Also - the progress bar starts even if I don't have enough resources, which is not very optimal, I think.
The crafting system is Cosmic Construct is mostly built for the pawns. The pawns really are doing the exact same thing the player is. They can't craft everything, and the player doesn't know everything. Currently, by design. I am going to include a recipe list, it will not be listed in one large chart for the player. I feel that would be overdesigning a simple merge mechanic. Instead I will be including it in the new objective system (which will require the player to make or acquire one of every item in the game during gameplay). I will make something that shows the player what object will be crafted when interacting with a device, and then autocraft the inventory.
(Also pawns can have their upcycle crafting toggle turned on, which expands what they craft into more complex recipes.)